The Ritual

Summary: When five teens completed a mysterious ritual, they decided to ignore the changes it wrought. Now, five years later It’s time to face reality.

((A/N Thanks for the patience y’all! I’m really happy with how all the dialogue turned out on this :) I hope you enjoy reading!))

——-—

“I’m so sorry,” the man says, hands falling away from her neck. He buries his face in them so that only his red beard peaks out. “I just don’t know how to kill you.”

Ashlyn gasps for air. She can feel the imprint of his fingers along her throat and each steady beat of her heart rings loud in her ears. “Understandable,” she wheezes. “I myself am somewhat at a loss.”

She’s not sure how long she’s been in this warehouse. A few hours at least, likely more. The windows are covered with cardboard and the damp smell of mildew tells her that they’ve been covered for a long time. No sunlight peeks through, no outside sounds, no indications of time passing at all. When the assassin had first brought her here, she’d assumed it’d be the last thing she’d ever see. Twenty-years-old and dead with soggy cardboard the last thing she sees.

Now, surrounded by shocking cables, bent knives, and shattered clubs, she feels her irritation at her attempted assassination slip into pity.

“Maybe fire?” she suggests. It’s a strange sort of lunacy to suggest her own mechanism of murder. But something in her had shifted after the assassin - Dylan? Dexter? - pressed a stake to her heart, raised a mallet with his other hand, and shattered the wood rather than plunge it into her chest. “Fire usually feels hot to me.”

“I tried that,” the assassin says. He climbs off of her and throws himself into the wooden chair she’d been tied to when he’d tried slitting her throat. “Right after the electricity knocked you out. You wouldn’t catch.”

“That’s weird,” she says. The rafters above her looks just as sodden as the room smells. “Did the flame go out or…?”

“Just sorta flickered,” he says, waving his hand once before closing it into a fist. He tips his head back, eyes closed, and presses his fist to his chest. “What sort of creature doesn’t burn?”

That’s what I’d like to know, she thinks. Out loud, she says, “Would you believe I’m not a vampire now?”

“Yes.” He sits up to glare down at her. “But you’re something and that something is still part of the coven. It’s my job to eliminate all members of the coven so we are not leaving here until you’re dead!”

Since he hasn’t been wildly successful in that direction, she can’t bring herself to be too upset. “Hurrah,” Ashlyn says, pumping a fist in the air. She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see his reddening face. “That’s the spirit.”

Silence rises around them. She breathes deeply, feeling every ache and contusion in her body, and listens to water drip on the other side of the room. There are probably rats in here. She bets that there are a lot of rats that will feast on her body once this man figures out how to—

The assassin’s breath hitches. He sniffles. His breath hitches again.

Ashlyn opens her eyes. “Are you crying?”

“No!” The assassin sniffs and frantically scrubs at his face. “I’m not!”

Ashlyn sits up painfully. Her ribs aren’t broken, but certainly not for lack of trying. The assassin is twisted away from her, hunched over his knees with his hands over his face again. “Hey, listen. Dylan, listen to me.”

“It’s Dexter.”

Damn. She only had two names to choose from and she guessed wrong. She recovers quickly. “Dexter. Don’t be upset!” She reaches out to pat his knees. “You are doing a wonderful job killing me.”

Dexter blows his nose on his flannel. “Really?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. It’s sort of gross how wet his jeans are with her blood so she quits patting his knee. “Honestly? Ten out of ten. If I were a normal person or even a normal vampire, I’d be dead several times over.”

“You would be, wouldn’t you?” Dexter looks cheered by the thought. “I’ve used that stake on ten vamps. It’s never failed me before.”

“It’s definitely my fault that it failed now,” she assures. Her cracked ribs are nearly healed. She leans on one hand as casually as she can and keeps her expression even when her fingers brush the hilt of one of Dexter’s abandoned knives. “You’ve proven yourself a very capable vampire hunter.”

“I’ve already killed all of your coven members,” Dexter says. He ticks them off on his fingers. “Maybell, Roger, Kassius and Adelaide. Bomb, fire, stake and stake again. That’s just this week!” He puffs his chest out. “You’re right. I’m doing a really good job.”

Ashlyn’s glad he’s not looking at her as he lists her fallen coven members. She slowly palms the knife. “That’s right, you did. They were really strong too. But you’re stronger, right?”

Dexter shoots to his feet. “I am! My family’s been stronger than vampires for generations. Hundreds have laid dead at my feet!”

“Overcome!” She cheers as he looks boldly into the middle distance. She brings her legs under her as quietly as she can. “Vanquished! Conquered!”

“Exactly!” He twists back to look down at her, a crazed look in his eye. “And you’re next!”

“I think the fuck not,” she says, surges to her feet, and plunges the knife right in his throat.

———-.

Ashlyn stomps into the apartment with blood still dripping from her hems. “Really?” She can hear the TV on in the living room and stalks right for it, slamming the door behind her. “A bomb?”

Maybell peeks over the couch. Her green eyes are distinctly guilty under her heavy bangs.. “Oh, hey, Ashlyn. You, uh, met Dexter?”

Roger, in the process of plugging in the Xbox, doesn’t look guilty at all. “How’d he kill you? I set a mannequin on fire and he legit thought it was me.”

“I pity let him stab me,” Adelaide says, twirling her auburn hair and lounging in the arm chair. Her eyes are glued to the romance novel in her hand. “After the gun failed.”

Kassius, sitting at her feet, raises his hand for a high five. “Same!”

Adelaide high fives him without looking, before turning the page of her book.

“He held me captive for eight hours,” Ashlyn seethes.

Roger whistles. “That’s commitment to the bit.” He tosses a controller to Maybell with supernatural speed. “I think I played with him for about an hour tops.”

“Thirty minutes,” Maybell says. The screen loads with Mario Party. “I call being Princess Peach!”

“I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear,” Ashlyn says. She rounds the couch so she can stand in front of the TV. Her roommates all protest, but she ignores them easily. “I was held captive against my will for eight hours while a madman proclaiming himself to be a vampire hunter tried to kill me.” When they continue to stare at her, she waves a hand at her bloody clothes. “And failed! Repeatedly!”

“You didn’t pretend to die?” Adelaide asks, surprised. She rests her book on her chest. “That’s kind of mean, Ashlyn. He was really trying.”

“He’s got a wife and kids,” Kassius says. He shrugs when Adelaide raises an inquiring eyebrow. “I overheard him on the phone with them after he staked me.”

“Aw,” Maybell says. She smiles. “That’s so cute. Little vampire hunters!”

“He had a wife and kids,” Ashlyn says waspishly. “Back before I stabbed him in his stupid, murderous throat.”

Her roommates gasp. Roger presses a hand over his mouth. “Ashlyn, how could you?”

“Easily,” Ashlyn snaps. When they all continue to glare at her, she throws her hands up in the air. “Am I taking crazy pills? It doesn’t concern you guys at all that we, apparently, can’t die?”

“Good thing we can’t,” Adelaide mutters, “or else you’d have to worry about your immortal soul after killing Dexter.”

“He was trying to kill me!” Ashlyn doesn’t know why she ever thought living with these three was a good idea. Nostalgia from their childhoods growing up on the same street? An early warning sign of lunacy? “He was failing! I got stabbed, electrocuted, strangled, choked—“

“Geez,” Roger says, impressed. “He really went all out on you.”

“What’s the difference between choked and strangled?” Kassius asks Adelaide. Adelaide shrugs.

“”It’s also sort of an issue that we got mistaken as vampires by an actual vampire hunter,” Ashlyn continues. “Like, a real vampire hunter. One with lots of kills.”

Maybell frowns. “That is kind of weird. We totally go out in daylight and everything.”

“I thought we were vampires,” Ashlyn says. She feels tired all of a sudden. She sinks to the floor, uncaring of the blood that gets on the carpet. After the ritual, she doubts they get their deposit back. “I was really, really hoping that we’d just be vampires.” The other three exchange a long look. Ashlyn feels her temper snap to life. “What?”

“Nothing!” Maybell fidgets on the couch. Ever since their stupid, teenage-mistake ritual, she’s been more restless, always tugging at her clothes and kicking her feet. “It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“You had expectations?” Maybell asks. Her lips twitch as if she’s resisting a smile. “We read mysterious, untranslated Latin in a drunken ritual and you had expectations for what would happen?”

“Ashlyn’s always been an optimist,” Adelaide tells Kassius.

“Ashlyn’s always been an idiot,” Kassius mutters.

“At least I’m not the idiot who brought the ritual home from the library!” Ashlyn buries her face in her hands. Then, when the dried blood rubs against her skin, she roughly rubs her palms against the cleanest part of her shirt. “Now we have no idea what we are, we can’t die, I’ve killed a man—“

“Yeah, that’s kind of fucked,” Roger says. “He had kids.”

“He was trying to kill me!” Ashlyn screeches. To her horror, she feels tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “Guys, please don’t tell me I’m alone here. I am freaking out. What did we do to ourselves? What have we become?”

“Hey,” Maybell says. She slides off the couch and crawls over to Ashlyn. It’s like they’re kids again, ducking under the low door of the tree house. She wraps her arms around Ashlyn. “Sh, don’t cry! We didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Kassius is on his knees, torn between going to Ashlyn’s side and refusing to take responsibility for her tears. “We’re still alive, Ash. We’re still us.”

“But we don’t know how long it’ll stay that way,” Ashlyn sobs. She wipes at her tears. They haven’t talked about that night, not really. At first it was because they didn’t believe anything had happened. Then, she thinks, it’s because they refused to admit anything had changed. They were just kids and then they were moving out and then they were here. “When— when the ritual finished, I felt something. I felt an energy inside of my chest. I-it changed me. Changed us.”

Maybell hugs her tighter, conveying without words that she remembers. Ashlyn feels a knot in her chest ease even as the tears continue to pour down her face. She didn’t imagine it. They changed and this fiasco with Dexter has highlighted those changes in a very real way.

“It’s like we’re kids again,” Ashlyn whispers. “Just— without any control. I hate it. I hate it.”

“Oh geez,” Roger says. He rubs a hand over his face and then slides to the floor as well. “Ashlyn. Look at me.” When she refuses to, he reaches for her hand. “Look at me.”

She looks up to find his face only a foot away. For the first time in a long time, his eyes are serious. She swallows, hard. “What?”

“We are not helpless here,” Roger says. He sits back on his heels. “I’m sorry we’ve been taking this so lightly. I don’t think any of us haven’t had the same thoughts you’ve had. We’re all worried. We’re all scared. We’re in this together, okay?”

Wordlessly, Ashlyn nods.

“He’s right,” Adelaide says. She’s the only one not on the floor, but she’s set her book aside and her full attention is on them. That’s as good as being part of the group hug forming for her. “We aren’t helpless. We may not know what the ritual was, but we can change that. We have the book. We have our memories of that night. Just four years ago, right? It’s still fresh. There are answers out there. We can find them. Together.”

“Together,” Maybell says firmly.

“I don’t know,” Kassius says, “I kinda wanted to enjoy being immortal for a while—ouch!”

Roger rubs the spot on the back of Kassius’ head he just slapped. “Together,” he says. He smiles at Ashlyn. “Like always.”

Ashlyn feels a lonely, scared part of her ease in that moment. The day she’s had, the torture, the murder, all seems to fade away. She has her friends with her, finally on the same side. “Together.”

Maybe she’s glad she roomed with her childhood friends after all.

“Of course,” Kassius says, “we should probably send Dexter’s wife some flowers first.”

This time, Ashlyn hits him first.